


The Man Who Never Lied

by anotherdollar



Category: Maroon 5, The Voice (US) RPF
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 21:56:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1527125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherdollar/pseuds/anotherdollar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam is hopelessly, head-over-heels in love with Blake and "not falling apart" over it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Never Lied

Adam is finally out of denial. He can't hide anymore. He's totally in love with the most annoying, heart-warming, caring cowboy he's ever met: Blake Shelton. Adam knows Blake is with Miranda and he's foolish to even think that Blake feels anything towards him but friendship, or even that, considering how Adam's treated him the last few days. Even so, Adam needs to tell Blake or else he feels as if he will explode.

Adam swallows his pride, at least as much as he can with his big ego, and when Blake asks him what's wrong with him, he takes the opportunity.

"Blake, look, I'm sorry. I never meant for this to happen, but I couldn't control it. And I know you won't like what I have to say because you're married, but I need to tell you."

Throughout Adam's rambling, Blake is looking increasingly worried.

"Adam, what's wrong? Who'd you kill? Did you get some poor girl pregnant?" Blake pauses before Adam's words sink in. "Wait, tell me you didn't do something with Miranda."

Adam can't even muster the energy to smile at what Blake just said, but really, Shelton, murder? Just because he writes songs about double homicide doesn't mean he would actually do it. That's what hired assassins are for. And now Adam can't believe his ADHD has taken control of his thoughts at a time like this. "No, none of that."

"Then what is it?" Blake looks somewhat relieved, now that the worst has been prevented. Adam mentally rolls his eyes. Little does Blake know, oblivious cowboy, but the worst is yet to come.

"I really don't know how to say this. I've been hiding it for some time now. And I know I've been acting weird the past few weeks. I love you. And I already know that you will never return my feelings because you have Miranda, and you two are hopelessly in love."

And with that, Adam turns and runs away. It's a struggle for him to drive home before he completely loses it. When he pulls up in his driveway, it's a relief. Now he can wallow in peace in his own self-deprecating pity. At least, until he opens his door to a zoo of men sprawled on his couches watching basketball.

"What. On. Earth. Are. You. Doing. In. My. House."

"You don't want us here?" James playfully asks, before he looks up, with the rest of the band, and sees Adam's face.

"What's wrong, Adam?" Mickey asks, completely serious.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing other than the fact that I just told Blake Shelton how I felt and ran away. Nothing at all."

It, surprisingly, is PJ, the one who has known Adam for the shortest amount of time, that gets over his shock first and comforts Adam. "Hey man, it's okay."

All of them are in shock, as they don't watch much of The Voice, being so busy themselves, and Adam has never said a thing about feelings for Blake around them. Sure, he's mentioned Blake multiple times, but it made sense with Blake being such a close friend that Adam saw every week.

"It'll get better," suggests Matt.

"No it won't. What do you think I've been doing the last year? Now get out of my house."

"We can't let you drink yourself into oblivion by yourself. Just tell someone what happened." James suggests.

"Fine. I just need something." Adam grabs a bottle of something from his alcohol cabinet, not even bothering to look at the label, and drinks deeply. "When I first met him on the show, we just clicked. We were friends. I knew he was with Miranda." Adam doesn't know why he insists on thinking about Miranda and torturing himself. He must truly have lost his mind. "Sometime this season or last season or whatever, I realized I was totally in love with the man. You know I don't put labels on myself, so I was fine with that." Adam pauses to take another swig from the bottle. "But it was killing me that I was in love with a married man, with a wonderful wife, that would never know. So me being me, when he asked me why I had been avoiding him this week, I told him. The truth. And then I ran." By the time Adam finishes the tale, he has reverted to his original "not falling apart" state. He curls up into James and tried to stifle the sobs coming out.

James looks at Adam and runs a comforting hand along his back. He has never seen Adam this torn up, ever. The time with Anne was bad, but not this bad. He guesses the songs they were going to talk about could wait.

The next day, Blake approaches Adam after taping wraps up. "Adam, I need to talk to you."

"No, you don't Blake. I told you how I feel. That's it. I knew I could never expect anything back."

"Adam. Stop. Don't run away from me again." He grabs Adam and turns him around. Blake knows Adam too well to be able to not read his emotions. "I just wanted you to know. I'll always be here for you. No matter what. You will be okay, right?"

Adam weakly nods. "I'll be fine. Don't worry about me." He knows he's lying. He knows he's absolutely not fine, about the farthest away you can get from fine. He doesn't want Blake to know and feel sorry for him and treat him like porcelain.

"Adam, you should know that I can tell when you lie," Blake starts, but Adam doesn't want to hear it. He's in his car and driving away by the time Blake can catch up.

Adam goes home, throws things at the wall, drinks more liquor, gets inspired. He grabs his song notebook and the words pour out of him.

The rest of the night passes with more liquor, melodies, and lyrics until Adam drifts off to sleep on his desk.

Meanwhile, there is a meeting at Mickey's house with the rest of the guys concerning Adam.

"Guys, someone should probably check on him. Make sure he doesn't have alcohol poisoning or something. He always tries to drown himself after bad breakups. This seems worse." Mickey suggests.

James volunteers and drives off to Adam's house.

"I'm really worried about Adam. He's in a real bad state." Matt says. "And I can't believe he didn't tell us about Blake."

James arrives at Adam's house and lets himself in to find Adam fast asleep, hunched over the desk with the lamp still on. James carries Adam to his bed and throws a blanket over him. He sees the notebook that Adam was previously lying on, and recognizing it as the one Adam uses to write songs, decides to look inside.

I was the man who never lied   
Never lied until today   
But I just couldn't break your heart   
Like you did mine yesterday

James muses over the lyrics. Yes, Adam did take pride in rarely lying, but isn't never a bit of a stretch? James shrugs; it's the next few lines that really confuse him. Blake obviously broke Adam's heart yesterday by not returning his feelings, although that wasn't at all Blake's fault. What happened today? Why would Adam have to lie to avoid breaking Blake's heart?

**

The album Overexposed was released and was doing well. Adam felt especially overexposed, with the media hounding every single step he took and having an album full of songs he wrote with his heart on his sleeve didn't help either. The Man Who Never Lied was going to be released as their next single and they just finished shooting the music video for it. It involved Adam and some pretty girl standing in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard and alternating between yelling and making out. Adam just felt so uncomfortable while shooting the video. It really couldn't get further from reality.

"Adam!" Adam turns around to see Mark Burnett calling him into his office.

"Hey, so your new single is excellent," Mark says. Adam nods, not very pleased at the direction he thought this was going.

"Would you be willing to perform it live in two weeks?" Mark asks.

Adam knows what he should answer for the good of the band, but he doesn't want to, for his own selfish reasons. More like self-preservation instincts, he laughs bitterly to himself. Adam reprimands himself, bites his tongue, and agrees to the performance.

Adam is standing onstage before the performance, nervous as hell and not sure how he's going to manage what could be the most self-destructing performance in his life.

While he sings, Adam tries desperately not to look at Blake, closing his eyes and getting lost in the song. At the end, he looks up and sees Blake. And Blake knows. He knows Blake knows because of that stupid look of pity that's intended for him. He doesn't need Blake's pity. He's getting along just fine on his own, except for the part about crying himself to sleep and writing songs. But he's strong. He'll survive just fine without the stupid cowboy.

The rest of the show, Adam is in somewhat of a daze. He gives praise where it is due, criticism where it is needed, but doesn't banter with the other coaches like he normally does. He tries not to look at Blake, think about Blake, or have anything to do with Blake.

Adam runs to his trailer and locks the door to avoid Blake, who he knows wants to talk to him. After he knows Blake has left, he sneaks out to the parking lot to his car and drives home.

That night, Adam makes a vow. I'm never falling in love again, especially with a married man.


End file.
